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Report - St. Michael's Catholic College, Leeds Jan 2011

28DL Full Member

On an impromptu trip up north earlier this year, we managed to fit this place in. It's actually in very good nick although from the recent posts I've read about it, maybe it's going downhill fast. It's a big old place and situated pretty much in the middle of a housing estate.

Here's some info from the Leeds Online archive if you want to know more about the history of the place.

At the end of the nineteenth century there were many barriers to quality education for Catholics in Leeds many of whom had only just arrived from Ireland.
Two young Jesuit priests, Fr Bodkin and Fr Meyer, were despatched by the Bishop to meet that challenge. They split the city in two, North and South, using the River Aire as a dividing line to be sure of systematic coverage and they successfully mustered eighty five boys. Shortly afterwards, to accommodate ever increasing numbers, St John's Lodge was bought and St Michael's College, which was to provide that much needed quality education for the next century, was born.
The admission register shows that Peter Bates, born in April 1893, was the first boy to be enrolled on 17 September 1905. He moved from St Mary's Elementary School and lived close to the current Mount St Mary's in Richmond Hill. He was a day scholar and his father Robert, a labourer, paid the governors six pounds a year for his son's education.

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